X-Force #34
As Sage falls apart on Krakoa, Maverick and his Mercs do some top-secret work for Krakoa in X-Force #34, by writer Benjamin Percy, artist Chris Allen, colorist GURU-eFX, and letterer Joe Caramagna. This issue goes in two separate directions, each one pretty great.
While Sage deals with her X-Force problems by drinking, Sevyr Blackmore attacks a shipment of Krakoan petals from Arakko. However, Maverick and his Mercs attack, taking them out. From there, the book switches between Sage, whose drinking has gotten out of hand as she passes out on monitor duty and costs Domino her life, and Sevyr Blackmore on Beast’s secret space prison. Someone he knows is a guard: Solem. Solem tells what Beast has been doing there, and the two of them escape.
This issue really breaks things completely open in X-Force. Wolverine is doing the same thing; Percy has been building this story with Beast for a long time, and readers get to see how far he’s gone in this chapter. He has Maverick and his Mercs on retainer and has built his own black site, where he takes prisoners to experiment on. Many readers have been speculating whether the Beast of X-Force is the Dark Beast from The Age Of Apocalypse. This issue does a lot to say that maybe the theory is true. That may be where Percy is going with X-Force and Wolverine because this book’s developments go further than ever. Beast has been amoral in recent years, but now he’s downright evil. Is Percy going this far with the Beast, or is this Dark Beast? That remains to be seen, but the fact that Krakoa, the mutant paradise, has their CIA open up a black site is perfect in the worst possible way. It really puts the lie to Krakoa being the unequivocal good guys, something that certain X-writers don’t realize.
Sage has been the book’s de facto main character for a little while now, and her alcoholism is coming home to roost. An interesting little tidbit is given by one of the lore pages. Sage asks Beast why he has a hundred billion dollars, and he ignores her before answering that he’s making sure to keep the Green Lagoon stocked with the ingredients for her favorite drink. That makes her alcoholism all the more sinister, like leaving a drug of choice out. The intriguing part is Omega Red looking out for her. Is he working for Beast, or does he care? Either way, this is a very cool little plot development.
Chris Allen is on pencils for this issue, and he’s fine. His style is rather generic, but his page layouts are good. Sometimes pages are more detailed than others. He’s better when he has more space to work with. Big panels and splash pages look great, if a little generic, but the smaller the panel, the more the detail gets sketchy. GURU-eFX shows off how fantastic he is at coloring. His palette is more solid and less painterly than it’s been with Cassara and Gill but fits Allen’s style nicely.
X-Force #34 does an excellent job of going into the next phase of the team. Percy is building something fascinating here and in Wolverine. Allen’s art is average, but GURU-eFX’s colors are wonderful. This issue balances plot, character, and action very well.
